


What We're Missing

by Stitchlips



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Also There Are Fireworks, Don't Think About the Technology Too Much, IN SPACE, In Which Pidge Makes Google Work, M/M, Two Boys Hold Hands and Pretend To Not Hold Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stitchlips/pseuds/Stitchlips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The video said this was one of the largest fireworks displays going on. Lance can tell; this is fancy shit. Nothing like this had ever gone on in his hometown. It wasn’t exactly the same as actually being there, or being at home, but… </p><p>Well. He guesses Keith is part of his family, now. Or as close as he could get. They’re all together up here, just five humans and two aliens. This was all they had. And, as he looks over at the raven-haired boy again, unable to help himself, he thinks maybe… well. He can be okay with that.</p><p>Keith looks over at him, too.</p><p>His smile fades.</p><p>Okay, so maybe 'family' was the wrong word for Keith, specifically.</p><p>----</p><p>Lance is feeling homesick on the Fourth of July. Keith finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We're Missing

**Author's Note:**

> WELL I originally intended for this fic to be published on the actual Fourth of July... and here we are... two days later. Sorry, Lance.
> 
> BUT! I had to really work with this one... I'm still kind of working on getting their voices down... I hope I did okay! I'll almost definitely be writing more for them. Anyway, enjoy this complete self indulgence!

The fourth of July.

Lance had almost missed it. It’s not like they ran on normal Earth time out in the middle of space. Truth be told, all these random time places were kind of buzzing Lance out anyway. He barely understood the difference between ‘ticks’ and seconds; he wasn’t about to try keeping up with each individual planet’s concept of time, and the castle itself didn’t really have clocks around.

Really, he would’ve never known before asking Pidge if they could figure out what day it was, because it had freaked him out a little that he hadn’t known how long he’d been out here in space. It could’ve been months for all he knew.

And because Pidge was Pidge and Pidge was a genius, the answer had come within the hour, alongside a running web browser that was just like home. “It’s July 3rd, Lance. Now please, stop bugging me and go find Coran. He was looking for you earlier.”

Lance had not stopped bugging Pidge, just on principle, but the weird feeling that had dropped in his stomach at that realization hadn’t gone away, even after Pidge had finally redirected his attention to Hunk and slinked away. It’d followed him into the next day, all the way to this room and all these false stars.

It’d been a month and a half since they’d been sent here.

He’d missed one of his sister’s birthdays. His older cousin had probably had her baby by now. Today was the Fourth of July. 

His family had always made a little show of it; nothing fancy, just a few fireworks and red-white-and-blue themed shit. His sisters all had their nails painted (and had usually ended up painting his too). There were sparklers, and good food, and his siblings screaming and chasing each other around.

And he was missing it.

His family probably wasn’t even going to celebrate this year; they didn’t have any idea where he was. They probably had the police looking for him. But they weren’t going to find him.

Lance leans his head back against the center console and looks up at the 3D map of the universe.

This couldn't be the entire universe, could it? No way. The universe was infinite. And even so, even in just this _part_ of the universe, Lance can barely pick out Earth in the organized chaos; only if he squints and gets up really close and zooms in with his fingers can he read the tiny little ‘Earth’ in small letters hovering over the planet.

It’s. Depressing, he guesses, but it also makes him feel… really small. Small and depressing. Not his usual moodset.

He keeps up a pretty good facade in front of the others. He has to; that’s his unofficial job on the ship. Comic relief. Sure, people might want him to shutup a lot of the time, but he knows that if he were to actually take that to heart, people would worry about him, _and_ the ship would be a lot more… dreary.

Lance usually doesn’t mind this, but sometimes it feels like he isn’t allowed to be anything besides that. Hunk gives him weird looks whenever he’s anything but his normal self, and after the first time he did that Lance had felt progressively dumber trying to open up to him. Shiro is there, but Lance feels… well. He doesn’t want to disappoint Shiro by showing him that he feels this way sometimes. Which is ridiculous; Shiro wouldn’t judge him for feeling weak and small, but… Lance can’t shake that feeling. Pidge and he were never that close, if he’s being honest, Allura and Coran were aliens, and Keith…

Well. Keith was Keith.

Lance doesn’t have to make more of an excuse for that.

The thing is, if he’s being honest, he doesn’t even really consider Keith a rival anymore. He and the red paladin actually… get along, sometimes, nowadays. He’d originally hated Keith; hated that he was so talented, hated that he seemed to be so good at everything so effortlessly. Hated that Keith hadn’t remembered him, when he had been the entire center of Lance’s attention for an embarrassingly long time.

Maybe that still stung a little bit.

But what can he really do? Just keep hating him?

Not when Keith seems so determined to not care that Lance hates him.

Still. Not like it’s easy to pour your heart out to someone you had hated for so long. Especially about ‘not feeling like I’m allowed to be sad’. Like Keith would care.

Lance sighs and lifts a hand up to drag the map around. The stars spin lazily around him before slowing to a stop again. A planet orbiting the star ‘Pollux’ twirls gently under his palm before he lowers his hand back to his lap.

“Happy Birthday, America,” he says to no one.

“You know it can’t hear you.”

Lance nearly jumps out of his skin when the low voice rings out over the room from the doorway. He snaps his head around, but he knows who it is without looking.

Keith moves into the room, and Lance turns back around, listens to his footsteps accompanied by the woosh of the door closing behind him. Before, the darkness had seemed lonely and safe. Now, there’s someone else’s audible breathing in it with him, even louder as Keith casually sits next to him like this is something they do a lot.

The stars in the room give a soft pulse, recognizing the body heat and handprint of someone else in the room, and seem to glow a little brighter under Lance’s eyes.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t supposed to hear me, either,” he snaps back, but there’s not a lot of heat in it, too embarrassed that he got caught talking to himself.

Keith doesn’t seem too offended, either, just giving a short huff through his nose and tipping his head back against the console too. “You’re the one in a public part of the ship, sitting alone in the dark.”

Lance snorts and shoots him a glare. “What, did I steal your favorite hobby?”

Keith glares back this time. “I sit alone in the dark in my _room_ , thank you very much.”

Shit. A laugh is startled out of the brunet, and he tries to smother it by rubbing his face with a hand.

Keith looks quietly pleased, anyway, and Lance doesn’t know what to do with that. The little smiles, the soft looks. They’ve been getting more and more frequent lately, even in front of the other paladins. Sometimes Keith laughs at Lance’s jokes, and looks surprised with himself. Every time it happens, it’s like Lance is embarrassed for him and happy at the same time. Like, _geez, stop, that’s c--. Embarrassing._

It’s a weird... something. In his chest. Lance is having enough weird feelings at the moment; he doesn’t need Keith and his doe eyes and tiny smile coming in here and adding more to that. Can’t a guy mope in peace?

“What do you want, anyway?” he says, maybe a little harsher than he needs to.

Keith’s pleased smile falls away, and he redirects his attention from Lance’s face (how long had he been staring? _Urrgh_ , weird feelings) to the stars that are still soft and blue above them. “I was coming in here to look at the map. I do it in my spare time.” He lifts a hand to spin the planets again, and Lance watches him in his peripheral. 

The stars glow against the navy blue and black of Keith’s eyes, reflected there like he actually had the map to home hovering around inside him.

Lance blinks at his own internal thought, feeling heat rise up in his cheeks. Well, at least he’s distracted from the sinking feeling of smallness.

Keith turns his head again and looks at him.

… Lance takes the ‘not feeling small’ thing back.

This room is too… dark and quiet. It’s messing with him. 

“Why are you in here?” Keith asks, and Lance latches onto the question before realizing that _that_ answer is almost as embarrassing as admitting he had been gazing into Keith’s eyes.

… Well. Still. Better _this_ than _that_.

“I was thinking about how it’s the Fourth of July back at home.” Lance shrugs, pulling his eyes away and back to the map. Earth has been spun away now; he couldn’t find it from down here on the floor if you paid him a hundred dollars. “I used to watch the fireworks with my family.”

Keith, however, is still looking at him. “Oh. I hadn’t even thought about it.” There's a soft implication there, and Lance can taste it in the back of his throat from where it hangs in the air. _Didn’t use to celebrate it. Didn’t have anyone to celebrate it with._ Lance can see Keith look down at his hands for a moment, and suddenly he is babbling, like he always does.

“Yeah, I was just... The fireworks were some of my favorite things. Like. Giant explosions in the sky, you know. It used to make me think of being a fighter pilot.” When Keith looks at him, decidedly more unimpressed this time, Lance’s voice pitches up defensively. “I know, it sounds stupid now. Like. Why would I associate explosions with being a pilot and still want to be a pilot? I dunno. I just thought it was exciting.” He relaxes back a little into the console; his shoulder brushes Keith’s, but jerking away would be showing he was uncomfortable. Like his babbling isn’t already doing that. 

“But yeah, so me and my siblings used to go out and watch the fireworks every year. We didn’t really have a lot personally, but like. There was this event that happened in town by the water every year, so we’d go to that sometimes if we wanted to see the really big fireworks.” He makes a ‘booming’ motion with his hand, and a bigger boom with the other hand. “Ba- _cow_ , Ba- _cow_ , you know. Like. The ones you could feel in your chest.” He places a hand on his ribs, turning to show Keith. “Right here. Like when you go to a concert and the bass is really deep and it just... makes you feel like your blood is jumping, right? Like? You know?”

Keith looks at him. “Uh,” he says. “Like when an explosion happens and you’re nearby?”

Lance’s animated hands drop. “Have you never--? You know what, that shouldn’t be your nearest point of reference, dude. I’m gonna find a way to show you all this stuff you’ve apparently never done. I’m sure there’s a bigass speaker around here somewhere that we can use.” Keith just keeps looking at him, seeming bemused, but pleasantly so.

“But like that?”

“Yeah, like that!” Lance tosses his hands up in exasperation and Keith laughs again, but there’s a heaviness behind his eyes.

“Hmm… yeah, I’ve never really. Done that. Not like a big group thing. Not a big fan of crowds, really.”

“ _Really_? I never would’ve guessed that about you,” Lance deadpans, and Keith shoots him a glare, the amusement dropping into full irritation.

“Not all of us had the choice to be around people our whole lives,” he snaps. “I just… I'm not used to it.”

Yikes. Lance feels a pang of guilt and shuts up. Keith keeps glaring at him for a moment before huffing and looking away again. “Don’t know how much I’d like them, anyway. They’re just like... explosions in the sky, right? With colors? Not a big deal.”

Lance frowns and shakes his head. “Nah, it’s like. A thing. It’s… there’s not a lot like it. I…” His frown deepens as he tries to think of a comparison that wasn’t ‘ground explosions, but in the sky’.

Suddenly he remembers something. Lance straightens up and closes the map, swiping it away with a big hand. The room drops into total darkness. Keith makes a sound of surprise, and straightens up too. 

“What are you doing?” Why is he _whispering_? That’s a better question. Lance gets another buzz in his stomach and swats in his general direction, making contact with what feels like his shoulder.

“Shh. I gotta concentrate.”

“Concentrate on _what_?” Keith is up on his knees beside him now as Lance fiddles with the center console, but before Lance can answer, the screen boots back up, and a wide shot of a video streaming site is up. The white is blinding, and Lance squints and makes displeased noises as Keith sputters behind him.

“What-- how did you--?”

Lance grins at Keith over his shoulder. “Pidge made Google work.”

“Pidge.” Keith sounds amused and impressed. Keith liked Pidge, Lance has noticed. Maybe it was weird to notice that they hung out a lot, but hey, you gotta keep up with your teammates. Right?

Lance turns back to the screen and fiddles with the controls until he scrolls to the search bar, and types in ‘fourth of july’. The screen gives Lance several options; real streams, from Earth.

Pidge had warned him that there were only a few sites they could make work, and it wasn’t a two-way system; messaging of any kind wouldn’t work. Which was kind of a bummer. But hey, at least he can show this loser some fireworks.

Lance clicks on the one with the most current views, cranks the volume, and then scrambles back to sit on his butt, grabbing the back of Keith’s jacket and dragging him down beside him. The other boy _oofs_ softly as he lands and the room goes dark with the black sky on the screen, and Keith whips his head around to snap at him.

_Ba-COOM._

Keith’s mouth clicks shut as his face turns towards the giant, exploding red firework on the screen. The room shakes a little with the noise and Lance lets out an exhilarated laugh as Keith jumps in surprise beside him. “ _Wooooooo!_ ” He hadn’t expected it to sound so good; it’s almost like it’s right there in front of them. In the complete darkness of the room, he and Keith could be actually there, together.

Another firework goes off; a blue one, just as big as the red, and then several little white ones crackling all around it. _Boom… boom boom boom… CRACK!_

The floor vibrates under them and Lance is absolutely beaming with exuberance. He turns to look at Keith. “ _Well?!_ ”

Keith’s eyes are huge -- well, huge-er, -- as he looks up at the fireworks. If his eyes were something Lance had noticed before, they’re practically holding his gaze at gunpoint now. Lance can literally see the exploding colors dancing over his pupils, the way they spiral out of the whites of his eyes and then go fuzzy when they flick over his skin. Keith is lit up in red, then blue, then green; colors splash over him like someone is messing with the saturation. It’s almost dizzying.

More than that, though, is the huge, bright smile on his face. It cranks up a few notches when another firework explodes and he must feel it in his chest. What hesitancy he’d been exhibiting before is gone; three fireworks go off in succession, and _bacoom bacoom bacoom_ , Keith laughs. Lance can see it happen before he can hear it, the peal only barely audible over the thunder in front of him, waning in and out as the sound of the fireworks reverberates and dies.

He’s gorgeous.

Lance backpedals from this train of thought, frantically, because that is _definitely_ not what he meant, he meant that the colors were… uh, just. Making a fucking optical illusion or something. Because he definitely doesn’t think _Keith Kogane_ is gorgeous just because his eyes are huge fucking… mirrors. That’s weird! They’re big, it’s weird. Like… like a _bug_ , really.

Keith suddenly notices him staring and flicks those eyes over to meet Lance’s.

 _Boom_.

Lights flicker over him, white this time, and for a brief moment, Keith is glowing. The smile on his face is there on one flash, and on the next, it’s faded; not sadder, but more serious. He looks thoughtful for a brief moment before the room shakes again and his smile returns in an instant.

“ _Woo!_ ” he says, and fuck, fuck, Lance doesn’t hate him. He doesn’t hate him at all.

He tears his eyes away to return back to the fireworks, suddenly burning in his own skin. The people on the ground at the actual fireworks show cheer loudly as 10 colorful little bursts are shot off at once, in a row. Keith, beside him, is still grinning like Lance has never seen him do. Their shoulders brush again, only now Lance feels like fire where their clothes touch. It spreads throughout his body to choke him in his throat.

Fuck. Now was not the time or place to have a big realization about his feelings towards the only other guy in the room. He needs time to process this, probably, only suddenly Keith is touching his hand and Lance’s heartbeat goes fucking haywire.

Lance looks at him and Keith pulls his hand back, looking awkward but firm. “I like this!” the red paladin says, and oh. He was just trying to get Lance’s attention. Lance tries to twist a smug smile onto his face.

“I knew you would! Loud and dangerous without the actual danger!”

Keith beams back at him, and Lance’s heart is just. Beating dangerously now. It’s literally like the fireworks exhilaration mixed with flying his lion mixed with the feeling of someone touching _your hand for the first fucking time why did he pick now to do that_. 

Keith’s hair falls delicately over his forehead as he looks back up at the fireworks, and his hand slides back down, resting against Lance’s. Just. The side of his pinky pressed neatly to the side of Lance’s forefinger. It could be accidental. It probably was. Lance tries his best to refocus on what he’d meant to be doing for this own personal fucking homesickness reasons, ignoring the blood sloshing around in his brain.

The video said this was one of the largest fireworks displays going on. Lance can tell; this is fancy shit. Nothing like this had ever gone on in his hometown. It wasn’t exactly the same as actually being there, or being at home, but… 

Well. He guesses Keith is part of his family, now. Or as close as he could get. They’re all together up here, just five humans and two aliens. This was all they had. And, as he looks over at the raven-haired boy again, unable to help himself, he thinks maybe… well. He can be okay with that.

Keith looks over at him, too.

His smile fades.

Okay, so maybe 'family' was the wrong word for Keith, specifically.

“Lance,” he says, and Lance can’t hear it, but he can see his name on Keith’s mouth, and he has not calmed down even a little.

He cups his hand around his ear to show Keith he can’t hear him, because he really doesn’t need to deal with seeing _that_ again.

But, uh, instead of just raising his voice like a normal person, Keith rolls his eyes and leans in. His mouth is a hair’s breadth away from Lance’s ear. Lance can _feel_ him exhale as he speaks. “Lance,” he says again, and _that’s unnecessary who else would you be talking to, dickbag,_ “thank you. This is really…” he trails off, and leans back a little, seeming embarrassed, flustered. Lance thinks he’s blushing. _No, it’s… red fireworks._

The two of them look at each other for a second, Keith still not seeming to realize how close he still is, all lit up and colorful and big eyes, and Lance quickly points to the screen, nervousness babbling up in his throat.

“Grand finale!”

Keith turns, and Lance practically thanks every star in the sky for it. The pulse in his throat is really just dangerous at this point.

But then the red paladin’s hand moves over Lance’s, just resting there. Lance tenses, peering at Keith out of the corner of his eye to see if this was somehow an accident.

Keith is very determinedly looking at the fireworks, jaw tight, cheeks red. His smile is locked away behind his mouth, and Lance, inwardly, justifies this as reason enough not to comment on it. If he’s gonna show Keith something, Keith has gotta be super impressed, because Lance only likes awesome things. So if not yanking his hand away will keep Keith from deciding this awesome thing wasn’t awesome, then Lance would let his hand stay put.

Yeah, see, perfect sense.

After a moment, Keith seems to realize Lance isn’t going to do anything. His shoulders loosen a little and he shoots Lance a look so quickly he almost misses it. The smile returns, but gentle, softer, and somehow that’s even worse for Lance’s health than the huge one.

And then they both jump as the fireworks go wild, attention completely redirected. Keith’s fingers slot between Lance’s, and Lance barely registers it, watching as red, white, and blue fireworks explode all across the sky. With as big as the screen is, it really could be happening right there in the room with them. Lance feels heat that isn’t there, smells smoke, remembers the taste of grilled hotdogs and burgers with too much ketchup.

The display is beautiful. Keith’s big dorky exhilarated smile is back, and Lance can feel a matching one on his face, so he won’t even be able to make fun of him later for this. The floor vibrates beneath them, under their joined hands, but no other noise permeates the sound of explosions. They’re silent for a long moment, just watching.

“ _Wooooo!_ ”

Lance is, of course, the one to break the silence, but Keith is soon behind him. For once, they’re just… being dumb together. Lance didn’t think Keith had it in him to shout for the sake of shouting. Maybe he still had some things to learn about Keith. Maybe that was kind of exciting.

By the time the fireworks start to fade out of the sky, they're both laughing with exhilaration, Keith more quietly but his eyes bright.

“See? Wasn't that awesome?” Lance says, turning to look at the other boy.

Keith’s breathy laugh is still calming down, but he looks back at him, his smile turning playfully wry. “I guess you have _some_ good ideas.” He looks down for a moment as Lance scoffs.

“Yeah, whatever, I'm great, asshole.”

Now that the brightness of the explosions is gone, Keith is barely visible in the darkness of the room. He's cast in almost monochrome black and white, but Lance can still see the weirdly dark blue of his irises and he looks up at him through his long, black eyelashes. “Was it as good as the real thing?”

Lance’s heart flutters a little. “Uh. I mean, it was pretty good, but. You’d still like the real thing better, probably.” He shrugs, trying to put on a cool, easygoing air. “I'll have to show you sometime.”

Keith’s little smile passes over his lips again. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, but if you're gonna come with me to the show, you're gonna have to get used to crowds. My family is kinda huge, and then there's the people at the _festival_ , and that's even bigger. Well, obviously.”

“You'd want me to go with you and your family?” Keith’s brows are lifted in apparent surprise, and Lance feels heat rush to his cheeks. He's suddenly aware they're still holding hands.

“Uh… I mean. Sure. If you wanted to.”

Keith looks at him. “I’d want to.”

God. Why did he have to talk like that? Like… what Lance was saying mattered.

People just ignored him most of the time. Blew him off. _Just Lance being Lance_. Admittedly, Keith had done this himself a few times; you had to, to survive. But now…

Lance swallows and stares back at him, and then down at their hands. Lance wonders why he hasn’t moved his yet. Keith’s eyes follow Lance’s, and he doesn’t move his hand either.

Lance’s mouth opens without him asking it to.

“I hope you get to meet them. I… sometimes I think we’re never going to go back to Earth, man.” 

It… actually feels a little better now that he’s said it. Like… it’s not something he’s just keeping to himself anymore. There’s this weird space of intimacy between them at this moment. It was kind of now or… probably never.

Keith is quiet for a moment. When his voice reappears, it’s gentle. “Yeah… sometimes I feel that way, too.” He shifts a little, and Lance feels it against his hand. “... But… what we’re doing is important. I know… that doesn’t really make you feel better. I mean… I don’t really know what that’s like. Having people back on Earth.” He shrugs, but his voice is still soft, comforting. “But… I think we’ll get to go back. I don’t know if permanently, but… you’ll see your family again, Lance.” 

Keith looks up at him, and Lance’s eyes are irresistibly drawn back up, too.

“Well, you have someone back on Earth now, too.” Lance blurts it without thinking. “My sisters would think you were so cool…” _Uhh, okay, Lance?_ “My mom would want to feed you until you popped. She’d get you like, a hundred sweaters. And gloves with fingers. And like… a haircut.”

He’d been expecting a glare out of that last one - Keith is actually really touchy about his hair when Lance makes fun of it - but the look he’s getting looks the opposite of annoyed. He looks… mmm. Lance’s stomach squirms.

“Really?” says Keith, and he’s whispering again.

Lance’s eyes drop to his mouth like he could read the words on them like he had when everything had been too loud. It kind of feels similar right now, actually. “Yeah.”

The air between them is tense, charged. Usually, it only gets like this when they’re arguing. Now there’s something else hanging between them; it’s not the threat of a punch, like it had been so many times before. It’s... 

Lance swallows, audibly, and Keith’s eyes move down to watch it happen.

“Uh,” says Keith, hand tightening on Lance’s, and then the door opens and Pidge falls through.

Lance and Keith spring apart like they’d been caught doing something dirty, outrage painted on Lance’s face and heavy embarrassment making Keith’s eyebrows sharp downward slants.

“Pidge!” Lance absolutely does not squeak, and the small paladin jerks up and sits down criss-crossed, slapping a casual look on their face.

“Oh, uh, hey! You guys are in here! Who knew!”

Lance spots movement near the door, and even though the person behind the doorframe ducks his head back around, he’d know it anywhere.

“ _Hunk_!”

To the surprise of both blue and red paladins, Hunk is not alone as he slinks into the room. Shiro is behind him, looking for all the world like he’s trying very hard to look stern and instead just looking weirdly guilty.

“We heard explosions,” he says, meekly, and Keith looks like he might fucking explode himself.

“But then we heard you guys laughing and figured you were actually… uh…” Hunk shrinks back as Lance and Keith whirl on him when he starts speaking. “And.. mummh, bummb, mmmmshuttingup.”

“We!” Lance gestures to himself and Keith in a big sweeping hand motion, “We! Were watching fireworks! Because it’s the Fourth! Of July!”

Pidge cocks a brow. “Just you two?”

Lance sputters. “Yeah! I mean! I was in here and Keith just wandered in and whatever! We don’t have to explain anything! Right Keith?!” Keith would back him up.

Keith is such a bright red he could be poisonous. He stands up. “I’m going back to my bunk,” he mutters, and Lance makes an incredulous noise after him.

“Traitor!” he cries, throwing his hands up.

Unseen to the other paladins, who are all still guiltily staring at Lance or avoiding eye contact with Keith, the dark-haired boy turns with his hand on the doorframe. His dark blue eyes meet Lance’s lighter ones for a second that feels like an eternity. His cheeks are still red, but Lance can almost swear he sees a smile twitch at the corners of his lips before he disappears.

Lance’s incredulity is struck through with that stupid fluttery feeling again; he watches Keith leave the room and the door whoosh behind him with a warmth percolating in his chest.

“Lance?”

God, he’s gonna have to work out some things. His hand is still tingling.

“ _Lance_.”

His eyes snap to Shiro, who has a look on his face that isn’t so much guilty anymore as smugly amused but trying painfully not to be. Pidge, beside him, isn’t even trying to hide the enormous smirk on their face. Even Hunk is leering.

“We’re sorry for intruding,” Shiro says, voice kind, if a bit strained from fighting the smile Lance can see anyway. “But next time, maybe… uh… ‘watch fireworks’ somewhere a little quieter? Or warn us?”

“Why did you voice air quotes around ‘watch fireworks’?” Lance snaps back immediately, lifting an accusing finger. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Shiro shrugs, all big innocent eyes. “Nothing! Just what I said.”

Pidge bursts into snickers and Hunk, on their other side, quickly grabs their arm and drags Pidge from the room. Their protests of “aw, come on, Hunk!” and “he looked like he swallowed his tongue!” trail after them from the hallway.

“Probably not his own,” he hears Hunk mutter, and his face catches fire at Pidge’s answering laughter.

He can't meet eyes with Shiro, but that's okay, because Shiro just kind of lets out an amused hum, briefly puts his hand on Lance’s head with a comforting little shake, and then departs.

Lance sinks the rest of the way down in the dark of the room, face pressed to the floor and groan vibrating off the metal. “Fuuuuuuuuck you, America.”

Well. 

Battle training was gonna be fun tomorrow.

With another grumble, Lance turns over on his back and looks up at the darkness of the room.

And, despite himself, hand tingling and tension slowly unwinding in his gut… tonight, he feels a lot more… big.

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched Steven Universe so the title and some of the lines in here are... a little bit inspired from that. Hrk.
> 
> I listened to [this](http://8tracks.com/catie-withac/against-the-odds) playlist throughout working on this fic. You should check it out, it's really well done!
> 
> Come scream at me on [Twitter!](http://twitter.com/majoraIenko)


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